6 Ways to Force Quit Mac Applications
Is your Mac seeing the infamously dreaded spinning beachball of death? Is an app failing to respond? Maybe you have an errant process or two? Here are six ways for apps to be force quit on a Mac, remember a few keyboard shortcuts or sequences now and save yourself a hassle later.
1) Force Quit Currently Active Mac App with the Keyboard
Hold down Command+Option+Shift+Escape for a second or two until the app forcibly closes. This is the quickest way to force quit the foreground application in Mac OS X and a very good keyboard shortcut to remember.
2) Bring Up the “Force Quit Applications” Window
Hit Command+Option+Escape to bring up the simple “Force Quit Applications” window, then click to select the app name, followed by clicking the “Force Quit” button to end the app immediately. Think of this as a simplified version of Activity Monitor, and it’s also a great keystroke to remember to use since it allows for quickly ceasing multiple apps.
3) Force Quitting Apps from the Dock
Option + Right Click on an apps icon in the Dock to bring up the “Force Quit” option, selecting this will kill the app without any confirmation.
4) Force Quit from the Apple Menu
Hold the Shift Key and click on the Apple menu to find “Force Quit [Application Name]“. This is easy to remember but not necessarily the most powerful method, since sometimes an application is completely unresponsive and the menus are inaccessible.
5) Use Activity Monitor to Force Quit Apps
Bring up Spotlight with Command+Space and then type Activity Monitor. Select the process name or ID you wish to kill (unresponsive apps will usually appear as red), and hit the red “Quit Process” button. Think of this as the Mac equivalent to a task manager from the Windows world and a more complex version of the second tips Force Quit window. If one of the previous methods fails, this will almost certainly work.
6) Using the Terminal & kill Command
If all else fails, using the command line is a surefire way to force an app or process to quit by issuing the low-level kill command. Launch the Terminal and type one of the following commands:
killall [processname]
For example, “killall Safari” would kill all instances of the Safari process. If you know the process id, which you can find with the ps or ‘ps aux’ command. Aim kill at that process specifically:
kill -9 [pid]
The kill commands will take out just about anything, and sometimes have the side effect of not honoring Versions, Window Restore, and Auto-Save, so be cautious of potential data loss.
Bonus: Force Quit on iOS
OK it’s not quite the Mac, but it’s useful to know for mobile users: from the iOS side of things, you can force quit apps on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, by holding down the Power button until the slide to power option appears, and then hold the Home button until the app closes.
Thank you! This is great information…
i Just loved the first one … thank you
kill like a boss:
# Kill Like a Boss
Killall() {
QSTRING=$*
PROC=`ps aux | grep -i ${QSTRING} | grep -v grep | awk ‘{print $2}’`
if [ ! -n "$PROC" ]; then
echo “0 PID found with the matching String: \”${QSTRING}\”.”
else
NUMPROC=`echo $PROC | awk ‘{print NF}’`
echo “Found $NUMPROC PIDs with the matching String: \”${QSTRING}\”.”
sudo kill -9 $PROC
echo “All process Killed.”
fi
}
[...] 원본 글 참조 (osxdaily.com) [...]
Had NO idea about the first one (adding shift to command-option-escape): NICE or the last one (killing apps on iOS). Thankfully, I have had very few problems with stuck apps on iOS.
[...] Ways to Force Quit Mac Applications - http://osxdaily.com/2012/03/02/force-quit-mac-apps – Ways to deal with the dreaded spinning beachball of [...]
Thank you for the information. Brilliant. I used # 5 – Activity monitor. Works well. Thank you.
tried all six to try to quit frozen iphoto, none of them worked?
Finally! I finally got rid of it thanks to you and Activity Monitor. I just wonder why none of the other sites I searched suggested Activity Monitor as a way of disposing of files that you couldn’t get to go away any other way. Thanks again.
What about killing a MAC window?
Do you always have to use red button at the left upper corner?
Does MAC have any keyboard shortcuts for that?
Command+w closes window, but the application still runs.
Command+q quits application.
I have always just turned off the power to my mac, then on again. Is this bad for the computer?
Very usefull.
The tip 3 is very efficient
Thanks a lot.
[...] menu is that it allows you to actually take action on running apps directly, letting you force quit them if they have become errant or are shown in red font, which signifies they are not responding [...]